Why Ozzy Osbourne Refuses to Play ‘Full Album’ Live Shows

Ozzy Osbourne has revealed the reason he’ll never agree to a tour that involved performing any of his albums in full on stage. He explained his thinking after being asked about the possibility of playing his debut solo LP Blizzard of Ozz on his multi-year farewell road trip, to mark the 40th anniversary of its release in 2020.

“That was the thing for a while, to play the whole album, but I don't write albums that way, so no,” Osbourne told Rolling Stone recently. “When I make an album, I specifically record songs that I'll never do on the stage. Like on Blizzard of Ozz, there are songs that I wrote never to play live, because the production was too heavy. I always do a ballady song, I always like to do a rock song and I like to do what I call album tracks. And I'll do the ballady songs and the rock songs onstage, but the album tracks are just too over the top. But I suppose I could do one.”

He’d previously said that although the “No More Tours 2” marked the end of his large-scale traveling career, he had no intention of retiring. “I just don't want to be on the road for the rest of my life,” said the 69-year-old. “I’m married, and I hardly see my family. I go out one door, and my wife comes in the next. I just don't want to be that guy.” He agreed that he wanted to “slow down a little more,” commenting: “I'm blessed that I'm still doing it. I'm blessed that I still have a fanbase. And I'm blessed that I'm still passionate about what I do. Paul McCartney still tours. The Stones still tour. That's their choice. I don't want to be on the road all the time.”

Asked about the remarkable things he’d seen from the stage during his career, he recalled a show where a group of people in the audience didn’t seem to be reacting in the usual way. “[I]f someone's not moving in the audience and not doing anything, I'll do the show just for that person and I'll start throwing buckets of water at these people. Then someone told me the reason they're not moving or getting into the concert is because they're all deaf. And I felt like quite an idiot at the time, lashing them with buckets of water and hosing them down… They were just standing there. Why does a deaf person want to go to a rock concert? I couldn't understand that. But I was told they feel the rhythm. It was quite interesting.”